


let our hearts like doors open wide

by estelares



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, Academy Era, M/M, every fandom needs an elevator fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:39:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7177733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelares/pseuds/estelares
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim spends mornings going up and down the elevator with two coffees in his hands, waiting for Spock. Does Spock even drink coffee? What do Vulcans drink? It’s incredibly ridiculous and just a bit pathetic, he knows, but he doesn’t know how to pick up guys. Not that he’s picking up Spock, anyway, Jim just thinks he’s nice and – and interesting, with his glasses, severely angled eyebrows and warm, honey eyes.</p><p>Academy AU. Jim meets Spock inside an elevator, multiple times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let our hearts like doors open wide

Jim meets him in the elevator.  
  
It’s well past midnight – when is it ever not? – and he was coming back from a housewarming of a friend of Bones’. It’s almost rude _not_ to turn up to somebody you barely know’s flat for a party when you live in a college town, and after all, it wasn’t like Bones didn’t want his fantastic wingman services with the way he’d been ogling that nursing student named Christine for the past semester. Staggering unsteadily on his feet, he smells like a bad combination of stale cologne, smoke and alcohol. It’s definitely not the most unattractive Jim has ever felt in his whole life, but it’s up there. Top ten, probably. His hair is dishevelled and resembles an indignant wild animal; there are damp patches on his shirt from dancing and spilled drinks; and there’s a dull, tapping thud somewhere behind his temporal lobe. At least there isn’t any vomit this time, he reasons with himself. His own or anybody else’s.  
  
The dull metal doors open with a ping on the next floor up. He doesn’t notice there’s an extra person in the lift at first, the steady rhythmic mechanic sound of the elevator reverberating through him. He leans a shoulder against the sleek metal surface and rests most of his weight on one side, feeling his head fall forward onto his chest as he begins to drift off.  
  
The guy sneezes quietly but it still jerks Jim awake, stifling a yawn and straightening up with a sideways glance at his new elevator companion.  
  
He’s got this dark, sleek black hair and – jeez, very severe eyebrows. They’re almost perpendicular to his browbone, Jim estimates in his drunken, sleepy daze. He is wearing a tight black leather jacket, zipped all the way up to his neck and equally dark pants. He looks (despite it being past midnight) like he’s just heading to work. The briefcase he holds under his arm is sleek and shiny like the rest of him. He looks…like he could be a lot of fun, actually – and Jim hides an involuntary grin with another yawn. Stern but sardonic – and a wicked sense of humour, if those dark almond eyes were anything to go by. In other words, exactly the type of person Jim loves to piss off, if they knew each other.

 

It’s a shame that they didn’t.

  
The guy has unnaturally perfect posture too; standing ramrod straight, eyes forward, arms at his sides. His mouth, Jim notices, is a graceful curve; lower lip full and pretty. His glasses have shiny black frames and, well…he looks like a professor. One of those young, extraordinarily clever ones. Jim watches as he pushes them back up his nose absently, checks the time on his phone and tilts his head, deep in thought.  
  
Finally, he gets off on the seventh floor.  
  
Jim leans back on the left side of the elevator walls, inevitably falls asleep on his feet and misses his floor three times.  
  
  
  
\--  
  
  
  
  
It’s six in the morning when Jim meets him again, heading down the elevator to get some exercise in at the gym before class. It’s a Tuesday and admittedly he hadn’t showered properly last night, having had an intensive study session with other cadets – so he might just smell a little musty, not that he can really tell. His hair seems mildly startled, peeking out from under his beanie, in need of washing.

The guy gets on and he’s holding a thermos of something in one hand – coffee, Jim guesses – and a PADD in the other. Again, completely unaware of Jim’s existence. It’s not quite winter yet and the chill is picking up – but it’s not _that_ cold, is it? He’s bundled up in a fleecy jacket that seems a little too much for the autumn breeze, and the lenses of his glasses reflect the elevator lights, so it’s hard to see the exact shade of his eyes.

Jim watches as the guy reads the PADD, completely and utterly absorbed in the little black lines of text. He has a sharp profile, dark hair against pale skin – his eyebrows look particularly severe this morning, the sharp line of his haircut a contrast against the slender point of his ear – _holy shit_ , Jim exhales sharply, nearly vocalising his surprise. He pretends to check for messages on his phone when the guy glances strangely at him in response, adjusting his beanie in what he hopes is a totally unsuspicious, non-creepy manner. When he’s sure the guy’s attention isn’t on him, he chances another look.

 

Vulcan. The higher temperature preference explains why he’s wearing so much. There aren’t many Vulcans at the Academy. Jim must have heard of him at some point or another.

 

Mostly, Jim’s just surprised he didn’t notice that he wasn’t even the same _species_ the first time around. He frowns at himself at the thought, running a hand through his hair again in a half-hearted attempt to make it sit flat.

 

He thinks he hears a coughing sort of laugh from the left and he looks up, but he must have been imagining things because the guy is still fixated on the PADD, occasionally taking absentminded sips of his beverage.

  
\--  
  
The next time Jim sees him, he’s coming in from the second floor, upper body nearly obscured by a ridiculously large box full of clothes and other knickknacks. It looks heavy enough without him trying to shift from side to side, balancing the weight out so his arms won’t give in. Jim wants to help out, be neighbourly, but they don’t even know each other and he feels awkward enough already, so he just resolves to staring at the guy without knowing where to put his hands.

Also, Vulcans have three times the strength of a human. Yeah, that too.  
  
Jim suddenly realises that staring is also generally classified as creepy, so he looks for something else to stare at that’s less incriminating – and then realises that they’re the only two people in the lift, so hey, what can he do.  
  
The guy doesn’t have a jacket on tonight – he’s wearing a blue long-sleeve thermal that’s stretched taut across his chest, flimsy enough so that Jim can see the outline of his ribs. Jim, being Jim, begins to absentmindedly wonder if he’s the type whose skin will flush with warmth on contact, or shiver with goosebumps when he slots his fingers into the spaces on that delicate ribcage, sliding up the hemline of his skyblue shirt. He thinks about this for a bit longer, imagining that maybe he’d nibble at the junction of the guy’s jaw and be rewarded with a shuddery, breathy half moan.

 

Jim wonders what it would be like to touch a Vulcan. Would they even be into that kind of intimacy? From what vague bits of trivia he knows about Vulcan culture, the answer is…well, absolutely not. Jim then promptly feels appropriately sheepish and wrong, so he shakes his head to clear those thoughts and blinks a bit for good measure.

  
He’s got horrible posture today, that guy – arms stretching, braced around that box, his back stiff and a little hunched, as if he was waiting to fall. Jim is standing a little behind him this time, staring at the raven black hair and the crescent-shaped strip of pale skin above his collar, like a slice of moonlight. He wants to lean over and run his hand soothingly along the line of his back, to press down on the gap between his shoulder blades because standing like that, all bent over, must be exhausting.  
  
Jim was just about to say hi – honestly, he was – when the lift opens and Scotty scoots in between them, also holding a sort-of large box, crammed full of food. He nods a greeting at Jim (or in his direction, at least), checking his phone and then his pockets, and then his hair (in that order) every ten seconds.  
  
The guy gets off on the seventh floor with his box, and Jim forgets he was even going to say anything at all.

  
  
\--

Bones drops by with Chekov in tow a week later because, allegedly, they have nothing better to do. Chekov’s pining after some guy who is, according to Bones, a bit of a weirdo – but anybody who is really into plants is weird in Bones’ book, though, so Jim tells him not to take it too much to heart – anyway, it’s been three days since Chekov has been quietly wilting, perched on a stool in McCoy’s kitchen with sad eyes (‘uninvited too,’ Bones adds indignantly) and Bones has had enough, so he drags (threatened is what Jim thinks is more likely, what with Bones’ impressive collection of hypos) Chekov out to get some sunlight and fresh air; but after an hour or so he’s is all damn droopy again and quoting Dostoyevsky so they end up, inexplicably, in Jim’s apartment.  
  
They spend the night sprawled out in the living room, drinking, watching movie rentals and eating shitty replicated pizza, Jim and Bones swapping stories about Academy shenanigans with the younger cadet, telling Chekov about that time when they decided to skip class for a week and hitchhike as far as they could manage - and thank  _goodness_ Bones was there or else Jim would have died of anaphylactic shock ten times over like a stupid sitting duck when they ended up in China and couldn’t read any of the labels on the food. ‘Reading labels is so 21st century though, Bones,’ Jim complained as he catches a well-aimed popcorn heading for his forehead. Chekov cracked a smile.

  
It was good. The next morning, Jim takes the lift with them back downstairs and they’re all stuffing back yawns with the backs of their hands, Chekhov hiding the circles under his eyes with dark sunglasses. Bones was flipping the lid of his communicator open and closed, bloodshot eyes and messy hair. Jim had joked that he was already starting to look like a recovering alcoholic.  
  
But of course, that guy gets on the floor below, clad in what appears to be Academy-issue jogging clothes. Jim stares at the back of his head for a while, at the crown of shiny black hair that’s cropped well before the curve of his neck, and decides that since he can’t tell whether Chekov’s eyes are open or he’s sleeping while standing upright, and Bones is looking too self-absorbed and hungover, none of his friends will care (or more importantly, notice) if he tries to make a move on an unsuspecting neighbour – so he takes a step forward, leans down a bit to the left and says: ‘Hi.’  
  
The guy pauses and seems gives him a confused look but nods back eventually so Jim takes it as a victory – until he realises that there are earbuds in his ears and he’s listening to music.  
  
They are all silent for the rest of the way down.  
  
Out of the elevator, though, once the guy’s well out of sight, Bones snorts and claps a hand on Jim’s back. ‘Fuck, you’ve got the social skills of a doorknob. If that’s as much game as you’ve got these days, you are henceforth and summarily fired as wingman–’  
  
‘No,’ he tries helplessly. ‘I was just trying to say hi, seriously.’  
  
Even Chekov gives him a sympathetic look.  
  
  
\--  
  
  
The next time Jim sees him, it’s seven thirty in the morning and he’s going to class and he's even had a shower and finally, he finally looks decent –

  
Not that Jim realises it’s him at first though, because he’s in Starfleet uniform, the lines of the outfit tapering at just the right places, the collar framing his neck and showing a slice of a pale, curved collarbone. His black frames are nowhere in sight, and jesus, it’s like the uniform was literally cut just to fit his shoulders.

  
The incandescent, almost-fluoro lights of the elevator should be unflattering against the tinny metal walls, but it only serves to make his skin look translucent and draws Jim’s eyes to the pink of his full cupid’s bow lips.  
  
Jim is so totally staring, he hasn’t even got the heart to deny it.  
  
The guy returns the stare a little quizzically and that’s when Jim looks away hastily. He’s examining the buttons on the elevator very studiously when he hears the guy clear his throat.

  
‘Excuse me.’ The Vulcan is looking at Jim with an unfathomable expression. ‘I am not aware that we have been acquainted. Do you know me?’

  
Jim blinks. His voice was deeper than he had expected – it was nice though, a smooth, self-assured cadence. He flushes with mild embarrassment, but at the same time begrudgingly accepting reality. Of course he couldn’t expect to fool a Vulcan. A really sexy Vulcan, too.  
  
‘Not really,’ he manages to reply without making it too obvious that he had just, with great effort, fished his mind out of the figurative gutter. ‘But um, we live in the same apartment block, I think? I’ve just never seen you around before, that’s all. Did you just move in?’ That sounds right, he congratulates himself. Not too creepy. ‘I’m Jim, by the way. Jim Kirk.’  
  
The Vulcan studies him in silence for a few seconds longer, evaluating his response. Although he is expressionless, the corners of those honey-brown eyes crinkle into the smallest smile. It trips up a livewire along Jim’s spine in the most inexplicable fashion. ‘Yes. You may call me Spock.’  
  
Spock – who finally has a name, thank goodness – then cocks his head a bit further, eyes searching.

 

‘This is the fifth time we have shared the same elevator,’ he says finally, ‘and I have observed that you watch me when you think I do not notice. Was there something you wished to say?’  
  
Something slips in under his skin and settles down, easing in like a winter chill – or maybe a slow fever.  
  
_Oh,_ Jim’s brain says. _Oh no_. He stares at a spot behind Spock’s shoulder so Spock wouldn’t see the faint pinkness on his cheeks.

  
‘Oh yes,’ his stupid mouth says, involuntarily curving up into a grin. ‘You said you were new around here, right? I remember how long I took to adjust when I first moved here. D’you want me to show you around sometime?’  
  
Spock, who has a voice that he can fall asleep to, listen to all day even if he’s reading off the back of a cereal box or the telephone book, regards him with a long look once again. Jim grins in response, thanking the elevator to be unusually slow and unusually unoccupied.

 

‘Perhaps,’ Spock is clearly considering him. ‘It will depend on my schedule.’

  
‘Sure, of course,’ Jim, thrilled that he didn’t receive an outright refusal, grins even wider. He doesn’t even know why or how Spock affects him this much already. Sure, he’s attractive, but he’s not anywhere near the best-looking guy on the block. There’s just something about him – a touch of sweetness, maybe in the sweep of his lashes or the gentle curve of his lips – that is chasing itself deep inside Jim’s bones, making him shift on his feet and fidget with his jacket.

Suddenly, his mind takes a sharp left and Jim thinks, hey, why the hell not. ‘So anyway, Mister Spock _,_ ’ Jim says, liking the way Spock’s new nickname sounds. ‘Where did your glasses go?’  
  
Spock’s dark eyes widen very slightly. ‘I am not aware that humans give nicknames upon acquaintance. Are you, as the term suggests, ‘coming on to me’?’ he inquires without expression, gaze fixed on Jim.  
  
Jim stutters, flushes brighter and gapes at him, wondering how hopelessly transparent he must be for Spock to see straight through – and then when he catches the light in Spock’s eyes, he realises, oh, he’s joking.  
  
Who said Vulcans aren’t funny, Jim thinks to himself.

 

‘Well, I gotta start somewhere, right?’ He doesn’t give Spock time to reply, mainly because he’s too scared that Spock _actually_ call him out on it this time. ‘But anyway, you still haven’t told me what happened to your glasses.’  
  
‘They are an interference,’ Spock looks dismissive. ‘My vision required minor surgical correction, and I was told to wear those lenses as part of the adjustment process.’  
  
Jim slants him a look, a slow smile spreading across his face. ‘Oh. Glasses aren’t that bad, you know. Makes you look like a hot librarian.’  
  
And then, a delicately raised eyebrow. ‘Are you suggesting that – ’

 

Jim laughs, delighted. He was just about to reply when the lift doors open and McCoy breezes in, presumably after visiting Christine Chapel again. Bones stopped short of the usual greeting when he spots the look on Jim’s face.  
  
A glance at the other occupant of the elevator makes him roll his eyes. ‘Pathetic,’ Bones mutters as he slides himself next to Jim and elbows him sharply for good measure.  
  
Thankfully, before Bones had the chance to say more, the elevator hits the ground floor and to Jim’s relief they spill out to the lobby in different directions, McCoy dissipating before he can get his hands on him, and Spock (who has hopefully been oblivious, but probably not) heads off in a completely opposite direction without a single backwards glance.  
  
Something reckless pushes Jim forwards again, thumbs tugging on the straps of his backpack.  
  
‘H-Hey! Spock, wait up!’ He says a little breathlessly.  
  
Spock turns with an expectant look in his eyes, and Jim feels something do a double-flip at the bottom of his stomach.   
  
‘Yes?’ Light soaked and warm, Spock’s brown eyes belies his stern Vulcan appearance.  
  
‘I um, wasn’t saying that you looked like a hot librarian, just so you know.’ It’s outright flirting, and he’s so bad at it. God, it’s like he’s back in high school, with a pink flush edging up his collar and scrambling for words to say – something, anything, just so he could justify staying a little longer.  
  
Spock stares at him for a second, and raises his eyebrows once more. ‘Believe me, Cadet Kirk, I was not particularly concerned.’ His tone is serious but his eyes, his eyes are smiling and damn, Jim thinks. When could eyes be so expressive?

The lights change, and Spock nods a goodbye before striding off down the street. Jim waves like an idiot, even though Spock obviously doesn’t have eyes on the back of his head. He feels giddy, feels like he’s flying – especially when it hits him that Spock had wordlessly accepted his little nickname.  
  
‘Spock,’ he breathes to himself and laughs because he is so very, very fucked.  
  
  
\--  
  
  
  
Jim turned a corner, and nearly walked into Scotty, who appeared to be desperately trying to break into his own house.

 

‘Forgot your keys again?’ Jim asked with a laugh as he dropped his bags and offered to give the guy a leg-up through the window.  
  
This was how Jim met him (and Nyota) a few weeks after he first moved here – Scotty slumped, almost asleep against their door at two in the morning when he first wandered by. Alarmed that there was a guy sleeping outside his door, Jim had stopped and shook him awake. ‘Aye, thank ya,’ Scotty had mumbled, voice sleep-rough. ‘I keep forgettin’ me keycard and m’ girlfriend sleeps like a log.’  
  
Jim had sat with him and talked for a while until Nyota woke up to all the missed calls and let them in. Staying for a drink, Jim discovers that they’re kind of like that tv couple you always root for: the pair that is just endlessly amusing to watch, seemingly complete incompatible opposites but always working perfectly together. He often drops in for brunch or just to get Scotty to look over his project drafts.

They also happen to own the best old-school sofa that could possibly exist in the universe, sagging and comfortable in all the right places and just long enough for Jim to stretch his legs. He fell asleep on it once, accidentally – and awoke to a pillow in his face and Nyota perched on the table in front of him, sipping coffee and smirking at him.  
  
Uhura smirks a lot.  
  
‘Morning, sunshine,’ she giggles, handing him a fresh croissant as their cat swished his tail at Jim.  
  
And because Scotty and Uhura combined would know practically everyone in the Academy (and he really doesn’t), he asks them about Spock.  
  
‘Oh my god, you _haven’t_ heard of Spock?’ Uhura is incredulous. ‘They say he’s a literal prodigy. I mean, he’s half-Vulcan so it does make sense, but they say he could be given a ship in two years. Or be assigned as Chief Science Officer –’

 

‘Jeez, stop making the rest of us feel inadequate, it’s – mmph!’ Scotty begins to say, but Nyota, however, was apparently interested in other matters. She pushed herself off the chair and strode over to sit right on top of Scotty, who was in Jim’s direct line of sight. She stares pointedly at Jim.  
  
‘Hey. Do you like him? Didn’t think tall, dark and Vulcan was your cup of tea.’  
  
Jim fidgets. Like him? Maybe he does, but in a shy, reverent way that people like the good-looking celebrities on tv.  
  
‘I…think he’s nice,’ He says somewhat lamely.  
  
Nyota raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. ‘Nobody thinks Vulcans are just _nice_ , Jim.’  
  
‘Nice, he says.’ Scotty sounds muffled but still indignant, hidden by Nyota from Jim’s line of vision – save for his arms and legs. ‘I thought this lass was nice for a few seconds, and now look what happened.’  
  
Jim laughs so hard he nearly falls off the sofa.  
  
  
\--  
  
  
  
Jim spends mornings going up and down the elevator with two coffees in his hands, waiting for Spock. Does Spock even drink coffee? What do Vulcans drink? It’s incredibly ridiculous and just a bit pathetic, he knows, but he doesn’t know how to pick up guys. Not that he’s picking up Spock, anyway, he just thinks he’s nice and – and interesting, with his glasses, severe eyebrows and warm, honey eyes.  
  
He does this until the coffee’s cold or he’s late for class, ending up having to drink both coffees hastily and feeling a bit sick from the caffeine.

  
One day, he actually bumps into Spock when he’s still got some time left and the coffee is hot.  
  
‘Why do you have an extra beverage?’ Spock asks, examining the café logo on the paper cup and taking a little experimental sip. ‘Do you habitually overdose yourself on caffeine?’  
  
‘Yeah, um, sorry I don’t know how you take your coffee, I had bought this for a friend –’ Spock raises his eyebrows.  
  
‘…but he left in a hurry so I thought I should just take it to class…?’ Damn Jim really sucks at this.  
  
Spock looks like he doesn’t buy that train of thought at all, but nods once regardless. ‘I do not usually consume stimulants, as a matter of fact. I prefer plomeek tea.’  
  
‘Oh,’ Jim flushes with embarrassment – of course Vulcans don’t drink coffee. Why would they need to? ‘Well then, you don’t have to take it, it wasn’t actually for you, I didn’t…well, I mean…’  
  
Spock looks at him with an unreadable expression, like he’s mapping out an extensive stratagem in his head. ‘But I am not adverse to black coffee on limited occasions. One sugar.’  
  
‘Right, okay, cool,’ Jim feels words falling out of his mouth in spite of himself, with a sneaking suspicion that Spock might just be saying that to save him some face. But with the way Spock is regarding him, he seems amused more than anything else.  
  
The sheet grey doors slide open and Jim blurts out a ‘See you!’  
  
‘Indeed,’ Spock replies, and tilts his head to look Jim in the eye. He looks different – glasses back on again – softer, younger when there are black frames resting on the bridge of his nose.  
  
Jim wonders if he knows, if he’s just playing along out of kindness to save him some dignity.

‘See you around, Jim.’  
  
The casual use of his first name startles the breath out of Jim, and he can only wave goodbye with the biggest, stupidest grin plastered on his face.  
  
When Spock’s well out of sight, however, he groans and thumps his head against the wall behind him.  
  
He is so...

 

'So fucking whipped,' McCoy concluded that afternoon over some cheap beer. 'Why are you so pathetic? You’re literally the second coming of Casanova when it comes to women. You don't even know his full name!'  
  
'Shut up,' Jim grumbles, finding no adequate comeback to the onslaught.  
  
'Well, you should at least have his number by now,' he continues in a pleasantly admonishing tone, as if he was telling Jim he should have gotten eggs from the supermarket on his way home. ‘But then again,’ he adds thoughtfully, ‘he _is_ Vulcan. Let me know if you ever get to first base in the next ten years.’  
  
Jim throws a coaster at him.  
  
  
Bones is very right though – because of course he is – and Jim is all sorts of hopeless and whipped. He sees Spock a few times every week, and his clothing revolves from regulation uniform, to tight black jackets, to long sleeved thermals that hug his shoulders and ride up from his hips when he stretches. Spock isn’t short – he’s the same height as Jim, if not taller, but it’s still a viable height for Jim to think about looping an arm around his shoulder to pull him in and press kisses in that sleek, neat crown of black hair.  
  
Jim thinks about kissing a lot these days. Kissing Spock, to be exact, Spock with a gaze like quicksilver and wildfire. He imagines maybe it would be like a flash of lightning, like warm sleep-doused sunlight and coffee, black with one sugar. He imagines it would probably wreck him.   
  
‘How’s the boyfriend going?’ Nyota sang, elbowing his side – and smirks.  
  
Jim rubs his temples, hard. ‘Don’t you…like, have work? Or something? Anything?’  
  
‘Man,’ Bones interrupts airily. ‘You really need to get laid.’  
  
Everyone is  _smirking_  at him lately.  
  
  
\--


End file.
